RELEASING JANUARY 9, 2026
A poetic conversation across miles and millennia, Sappho Prompts engages an ancient voice in contemporary poems of life and love. Margaret Lee’s collection responds to ancient Greek fragments of Sappho, known in antiquity as The Poetess. Using Sappho’s fragmentary lines as prompts Lee’s poems reflect the myths, desires, and longings that characterize Sappho’s ancient songs. Sappho Prompts features Lee’s translations of Sappho from the Greek with extensive notes, cover art by the author, and an explanatory essay explaining Sappho’s context in ancient literature and her enduring influence.
"In this elegant and beautifully crafted collection of poems, Lee, a Greek scholar, has merged with Sappho—first as inspiration, then in deeper communion. Longing is compressed into theme, “I dive for missing pieces.” The book is a becoming, and in becoming, there is fusion with the prompting body.
“I lavish my attention/on the journey of Becoming,” she announces. Lee is in a dialogue that fuses the two poets. Sappho also serves as entrance to the natural world: “Sweet clover and I/ran wild in summer.” Here is a poet tuned into “False boundary of the body,/a stand of aspen/joined underground.” While she uses myth, it is to further the understanding of the Feminine. Lee’s mother-daughter poem, In Parallel, is alarmingly beautiful, as it ends: “…the muffled click—/your bedroom door-latch—/white barrier//inbreath/when I saw/the scar.”
“I lavish my attention/on the journey of Becoming,” she announces. Lee is in a dialogue that fuses the two poets. Sappho also serves as entrance to the natural world: “Sweet clover and I/ran wild in summer.” Here is a poet tuned into “False boundary of the body,/a stand of aspen/joined underground.” While she uses myth, it is to further the understanding of the Feminine. Lee’s mother-daughter poem, In Parallel, is alarmingly beautiful, as it ends: “…the muffled click—/your bedroom door-latch—/white barrier//inbreath/when I saw/the scar.”
Veronica Golos
author of GIRL
This collection embraces all the various aspects of womanhood and the constant changing that occurs, like the persistent flowing of water. It reminded me of my own child-like self and warrior-creator-mother-self.
Aubrey Green
Editor | Emerge Literary Magazine